Chapter 3
“Why are we stopping here?”
I have to raise my voice to be heard over the final notes of a song by Creed, some old rock band Mom loves, as they strain through the speakers. With wary eyes, I survey the For Sale sign and the giant red SOLD sticker that’s slapped across the real estate agent’s face.
Though someone has attempted to fix it up a little—the broken first-floor windows and the missing boards on the stairs have been replaced, and it looks like there’s a newish coat of paint—there’s no doubt this monstrosity is the farmhouse from Theo Hargrave’s videos.
My heart starts to speed up in my chest. This can’t mean what I’m afraid it means. “Mom,” I say. My voice cracks on the single syllable. “I thought we were going to a hotel.”
She stares out the windshield, her expression obscured by her enormous sunglasses. “Okay, listen.” She’s trying to sound upbeat, but I can hear the defensiveness at the edge of her tone.
My shoulders tighten.
“I swore when I took this job that I would find us somewhere nearby to live. Right in town. So we could both have an easy commute. But Harlow’s Rest is really small and apparently people rarely move away, so there was basically only one available house.
” She pushes her sunglasses into her hair.
Her eyes look like Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies, all big and pleading.
“The price was perfect—way under our budget, and it comes with grant money to fix it, since it has been designated as a historical building. We can really make it something special.” She nods at the house, then takes a deep breath. “Something that’s ours.”
Curse words erupt in my head like rockets exploding.
My mother bought the town haunted house.
Of course she did.
I’m already the weird girl on a normal day. Now I’m going to be the weird girl who lives with ghosts.
Great. Just great.
I squeeze my hands into fists and press them to my thighs.
“You didn’t even ask me what I thought.” Just like she never bothered to ask if I wanted to move across the country—or change my college plans, or leave my best friend behind—before agreeing to take a job here.
Just once, it would be nice to be consulted about something that’s going to drastically impact my life.
“I know, honey, I’m sorry, but there wasn’t time.
I had to act fast. I haven’t even seen it in person yet.
I had to do a virtual tour with the selling agent and FaceTime with the inspector.
I couldn’t pass this up. We’re like ten minutes from the school.
Think about how much longer you’ll be able to sleep in.
” She does her best to flash a winning smile.
My eyes drop to my phone screen, where the house stares back at me from the video. “You do know everyone around here thinks this place is haunted, right?” And according to what that YouTube Ghost Boy said, no one who tries to live here ever sticks around for long.
Mom lets out a slightly manic laugh. “Oh, stop. It just needs a little TLC.”
“It’s all over the internet.” I flash my phone at her.
She waves me off. “It’s going to look great when we’re done with it. Zero haunted-house vibes. And you will get full control over decorating your space.”
I hate that her words pique my interest. “My space?”
“I thought the whole second floor could be yours. One of the previous owners installed a full bath up there, so I’m betting the local historical commission is pretty lenient about renovations.
We could knock down walls between two of the bedrooms and create one big open area, or you could keep things separate. Whatever you want to do.”
“Whatever I want?”
“Like a little apartment. But no rent.” Her smile is confident.
She knows she’s hooked me. The one thing that has been bumming me out about free college is having to live at home.
Mom’s benefits cover classes, but not room and board.
Which means I’ll never get to decorate half of a dorm room, never get to curate a space that entirely reflects me, and me alone.
Already, I’m imagining what I could do with three whole rooms. A giant closet/dressing area? A place to study? A crafting room? A library? A little fridge for snacks so I won’t have to always go to the kitchen?
For the first time since Mom told me we were moving, a small spark of excitement kindles in my chest.
My mother pops open the driver’s side door and circles round to the back of the SUV.
I get out and trail slowly after her. Above us, the upstairs windows stare like eyes.
They’re all boarded up, with a second set of two-by-fours nailed in an X across the panes.
It almost looks like they’re meant to keep something in rather than out.
She hefts two suitcases out of the back and sets them on the ground in front of me.
“Mom, this place needs a lot of work. And not like paint or new hardware or whatever. Things we can’t learn to do online. I mean, do we even have a toolbox?”
“We’ll get one tomorrow when we visit the hardware store.” She studies my face for a moment, then cradles my cheek with the palm of her hand. “I promise we will be perfectly safe here. The seller assured me the first floor is completely livable as is—”
Clang.
Mom and I jump, and a garbled screech rips past my lips. Birds tear from the branches of the surrounding trees, and somewhere nearby, a dog starts barking frantically.
I glance around as I try to slow my heartbeat, but I can’t seem to find the source of the noise. “Uhhhh…maybe we should get a hotel room. Just for a few days. Until we know what we’re dealing with.” Or until I convince her to sell this monstrosity and find us an actually inhabitable house.
“It was just a loose shutter on the second floor.” She points at one of the gutters, which now holds a large chunk of black-painted wood. “I wanted to replace those anyway.”
“Mom, we know how to decorate things, not renovate them.” The two of us need multiple tries to hang a picture straight.
“We’re both smart and capable. All we need is the internet and some grit.”
And a construction crew, I want to add. But I hold those words back as I take my mother in.
She’s lugging a basket full of blankets out of the trunk.
There’s a smile on her face, yet I can see how hard she’s working to keep it there.
Her mouth twitches, and her knuckles are white from gripping the basket so tightly.
Dark circles ring her eyes, and her brow has creases deep enough to swim in.
It reminds me that I’m not the only one struggling. We left everything she knows behind too.
“Let’s make sure to get some hard hats,” I quip.
“Pink ones,” she declares. “We can bedazzle them.”
I refuse to admit that this actually sounds like a good time. Or at least more fun than learning plumbing. “I’d much prefer something in the lilac family,” I note as I lift a box into my arms.
She clears her throat. “I promise to get professionals for the big stuff.” Her voice is more serious now. “But I think you and I can get a lot done here. Just us.”
“Okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure I agree.
With each step I take toward the house, I search for some silver linings.
Maybe I can build a whole new personal aesthetic to match my home.
Cultivate some Wednesday Addams or Lydia Deetz vibes.
I could be aloof. Detached. The girl who lives in the haunted house doesn’t have crippling social anxiety.
There’s no time: She has “ghosts” to contend with.
For a second, I imagine myself trading my colorfully patterned, oversized shirts and wide-legged jeans, my comfy tennis shoes and big gold hoop earrings, for dark dresses that hug my wide curves and combat boots.
Dyeing my highlighted hair a startling shade of black.
Wearing crosses and pentagrams on long, layered necklaces.
Frowning at everyone instead of smiling awkwardly.
I could get that clavicle tattoo of a bird-of-paradise plant that I’ve always dreamed about—though I’d have to add some cobwebs or bats to it to uphold the aesthetic.
I laugh a little. I could never pull it off.
A few years back, Taylor got obsessed with some random movie from the nineties called The Crow and demanded the two of us dress like the main character for Halloween.
We painted our faces white, with black lipstick and black eyeliner dripping from the corners of our eyes.
Taylor looked badass. I looked like a clown who’d gotten sucked into a black-and-white film and couldn’t stop crying about it.
The porch creaks under our feet. Though the missing boards have been replaced, it still feels flimsy, and I let out a breath when we reach the threshold without falling through.
The front door is cherrywood and shiny with new varnish, a garish contrast to the upside-down house number nailed into the frame, its brass digits so tarnished they appear to be painted black.
Though from a distance, the entire house looked like it had gotten a fresh coat of color, paint chips from the siding dust the porch like gray dandruff.
As Mom unlocks the door, cobwebs sway above our heads in the peak of the overhang.
As soon as Mom disappears into the house, the old rocking chair tucked into the corner of the porch starts moving. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like someone’s sitting in it. A chill rakes its way down my spine, forcing me to give myself a good internal scolding: It’s the porch, you dork.
It’s not that stable, and Mom and I both walking on it obviously upset the balance. If the floor is tipped forward a little, it would cause the chair to rock.
Basic physics, nothing more.
All the same, I rush into the house.
My mother finds a switch on the wall and flicks it up. I’m prepared for nothing to happen, but to my surprise, two standing lamps beside her glow to life.